Susan Polk
On June 13, 2006, jurors began deliberations in the trial of Susan Polk, 48, for the October 2002 murder of her psychotherapist husband Felix Polk, 70, in a poolside cottage at the couple's Orinda, California home. Felix was stabbed and cut 27 times and had suffered blunt force trauma to the head.
Medgar Evers
On June 12, 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers is shot to death in the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith.
Henry Hill
On June 11, 1943, mobster Henry Hill was born in New York City. His life of crime was chronicled in the 1986 book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family and the 1990 film Goodfellas. Hill’s underworld exploits included participating in the headline-making $5.8-million heist at the Lufthansa cargo terminal at New York City’s JFK International Airport in 1978. It was the largest recorded cash robbery in American history at the time.
Salem Witch Trials
On June 10, 1692, Bridget Bishop, the first colonist to be tried in the Salem witch trials, is hanged after being found guilty of the practice of witchcraft.
Heidi Fleiss
On June 9, 1993, Heidi Fleiss is arrested as part of a sting operation run by the Los Angeles Police and Beverly Hills Police Departments and the U.S. Justice Department.
James Earl Ray
On June 8, 1968, James Earl Ray is arrested in London, England, and charged with the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Michael Skakel
On June 7, 2002, Michael Skakel is convicted in the 1975 murder of his former Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbor, 15-year-old neighbor Martha Moxley. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the wife of the late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, was later sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is OConnor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Also available from Amazon
